The Goblin Mirror

11

SUPPER SEEMED TO HELP. YURI THOUGHT TO HIMSELF THAT master Karoly must have been ail day without food, and small wonder, then, he looked so vastly overcome: it was not all the ghosts, Yuri tried to convince himself. Fear was not the reason master Karoly's hands shook and rattled the knife against the pan. But Nikolai did not look cheerful in Karoly's arrival, and Zadny butted his head in Yuri's lap and tramped him with his huge paws, unwilling to be separated from him by so much as an arm's length—nor had the trolls come back, since the wind and the ghostly presence, and Yuri did not blame them: if he had not known Karoly, and known Nikolai, he might have run off, too.

"So what do we do!" Nikolai asked when Karoly set the plate aside. Yuri was very glad Nikolai asked questions like that. He had sat ever so long in his life waiting for grown-ups to ask questions like that.

"We see if we can get her back again," Karoly said.

"Who, your sister?" Nikolai asked.

"No telling. No telling what we'll get now. Ytresse was here. Ylysse was." Master Karoly took a stick and began stirring the fire around, sending up sparks in streams into the dark. "Ytresse was before Ylysse, Ylysse was the first of our time—Ysabel knew her. But Pavel—Pavel—he has to be one of the ones in the mix."

"What mix?" Yuri asked faintly, figuring everyone would tell him to shut up, they always did.

"The ghost," master Karoly muttered absently. "Ysa-bel's in pieces. Bits of her, bits of Pavel ... Ytresse held this place after it fell, while Tajny Straz was building. And Ylysse. And Ylena. I wouldn't except any of them."

"Who are they?" Yuri wanted to know, but Nikolai got up from the fireside and stood behind him, his hands on his shoulders. "The castelan. Dead witches," Nikolai said under his breath, not interrupting Karoly, whose meddling with the fire had not ceased.

"Attract her into a whole," Karoiy muttered. "Ysabel's— diffuse right now. That's why you can't find ghosts." Sparks flew up. An ember snapped. "It takes passion to make a haunt. Murder, violent death, tragic death ... that, oh, yes, yes, she had." More sparks. "Ysabel? Ysabel? Do you hear me, sister? It's Karoly calling you."

The sparks from the fire seemed to hang too long in the wind, to dance and swirl and come together like a congregation of fireflies.

"Then the obsessed ones," Karoly said, still stirring, still sending up stars, "the ones that can't turn loose of the world—that's Ysabel, too, that's certainly Pavel. I think that's Ylena."

Nikolai's fingers bit painfully into Yuri's shoulders and Yuri held his breath, unable to look away from that aggregation of sparks. He heard Zadny whining and growling, he felt the hair on the nape of his neck lifting and he wanted to run, except master Nikolai's fingers were bruising his shoulders.

A shadow rushed at them, a shadow shaggy with brown hair burst through the fire scattering embers, and turned and hissed and spat.

"Krukczy!" Yuri breathed, while Krukczy brushed at the singes to his coat, and spat and fussed, the other side of the fire, in the dark. Zadny barked, once and sharply, and Yuri hushed him.

But the magic had stopped. "Damned troll's right," Nikolai said in a low voice. Master Karoly had gotten to his feet, turning slowly to survey the woods, the ruined wall, the dark along the stream. The other troll had shown up, too. It huddled in the reeds.

"Damn," Karoly said, flinging out a gesture of disgust, and paced a wide circle. "Damn, and damn, Ysabei, don't be contrary, do you hear, don't be contrary! Do you want the goblins to get away with it? Is that what you want? To spite me, is the queen going to get away with what she did to you? With what they did to Pavel. He's dead. He's there with you. So are others, Ysabei, for the Lady's sake figure it out!"

Yuri flinched, because master Nikolai was hurting him— and it seemed to him now that the sparks were getting lip on their own, that they were making a shape.

And the old man rounded on it. "Ysabei?"

The fire blew up and sparks showered and whirled in trails of glowing smoke, up and up and up, until it made a shape, or shapes, all rolling and twisting like snakes.

"Pavel," Karoly snapped, "get out of the way! Do you hear? You're not protecting her, you're in the way, do you hear me?"

A thread spun off, and snaked around and around the center shape.

"Ysabei!"

Sparks flew every which way, and of a sudden a great wind blasted through their midst. Sparks stung Yuri's face.and hands, and Zadny barked and growled at something as Nikolai let go his hold and swore.

Trails of glowing smoke spiraled all about the stream bank, raced along the walls, wove among the trees, and spun faster and fester. Nikolai had his sword, but there was nothing a sword could fight, only the wind, and of Krukczy and his friend there was no sign at all.

Then came a voice that might be a woman's voice, Yuri could not tell. It was everywhere, and terrible, and a face loomed up right in his face, saying, "Who are vow?"

He did not think he ought to answer. He stood still, while Zadny leaped and tried to bite it, but Karoly said sternly, "Ytresse! Is it Ytresse?"

The swirl broke apart and spun elsewhere, around and around and around the circle of firelight, and suddenly rushed from everywhere at once, up and up, until it made a shape.

"Ytresse!" Karoly shouted. "You've no business here. Begone! Ysabei! Urzula!"

"That's gran's name," Yuri exclaimed, twisting to see what Nikolai might know. "What does gran have to do with it?"

"Maybe she wants her right name," Nikolai muttered, which made no sense. Nikolai was looking at the fire, over which, when he looked back, a shape hovered, and changed, until it was a woman's face, and another woman's, and a man's, Yuri could not tell which—they blurred one over the other and the features changed like pictures in glowing coals.

"To the queen," the image said, in its double voice, "to the queen, to the queen—the mirror of what is and may yet be—to the queen—the mirror of the moon, change fixed unchanging—" It said more than that, but more and more voices chimed in until nothing came clear.

Karoly ventured close to the fire—scarily close, Yuri thought: he would not have done that; close enough to pick up a burning stick and trace patterns in the air, patterns which stayed in the eye like the sun at noon. Letters, Yuri thought. Writing, all tied together in knots. The letters turned around and around the way the smoke did, and then streamed, streamed, large as they were, right to Karoly's open hand. The smoke followed the letters and the sparks followed the smoke.

Then there was just the fire, and Karoly leaned on his staff and sat down, plump! where he was, head hanging, in front of a tame, quiet campfire.

"So?" Nikolai wondered under his breath. "So? Did it do anything?"

Good question, Yuri thought. Excellent question, master Karoly would say. Nikolai gingerly let him go and walked over to where master Karoly was resting. Yuri followed, with Zadny crossing repeatedly in front of him and jumping at his hands. "Go away!" he told Zadny, and grabbed him before he bothered master Karoty, who did not look at ail well.

"What was that?" Nikolai asked Karoly, and Karoly, with a deep breath:

"My sister. And Pavel. Together. Mostly. Ytresse. Ylysse. Lady Moon, what have I called?"

"So could you talk to her? Dammit, old man, could you find so much as where Tamas went? Did he go through the arch?"

"Oh, that they did," Karoly said, "that they most certainly did."

"Then let's go after them!" Yuri said. But no one listened. Nikolai muttered something about if Karoly had taken care of things the way he should, and Karoly said something about people needing to deal with what was instead of what could have been, and that sounded dangerously close to a fight.

"Stop arguing," Yuri cried, and to his surprise both of them stopped talking and looked at him. "My brother needs help," was all he could think to say. "If the ghosts won't help us, if magic won't, then we have to go there ourselves, don't we?"

"Not in the dark," Nikolai said.

"Not in the dark," Karoly agreed, and got up, leaning heavily on his staff, and began to draw a line in the dirt and in the grass.

Why? Yuri wondered. But it looked like what boys drew in the dirt when they were going to fight, or a line nobody was supposed to cross. And when master Karoly drew it, he thought, things had better think twice about crossing it. He went and brought Gracja closer, where she could be inside that line when it closed, and all the while Zadny kept at his heels.

All the way about a huge area, master Karoly went, drawing his line. And he came back and muttered something at the fire, which flared up and ran a tendril of smoke out and out and around and around them like a wall.

"We left the trolls outside," Nikolai said, "good riddance."

"They can come and go," Karoly said.

"Fine. Then what good is it? Trolls can come and go. Can ghosts?"

"Not if I can prevent it."

"Well, it's not damn much good at all, is it?"

"You didn't build it, master huntsman. Let's see your line, let's see you defend it."

"Don't fight!" Yuri cried, angry at both of them.

"Listen," Nikolai said, ignoring him, "one—one troll was useful. Two of them we don't need. Why are there suddenly two of them? What do we need with two?"

"Because Hasel had one," Karoly said. "Every civilized place has one."

"No place that I was," Nikolai said.

"Then you were never anywhere civilized! And they have them north of here, I have every authority for it."

"Bogles in the hayloft," Nikolai said.

"And the bath-house. And the grain-bins. And the fields and the milking-sheds and the cellars."

"Those aren't trolls."

"It's the same thing!"

"They haven't any tails! I never saw a polevik with a tail!"

"Have you ever seen a polevik?"

Evidently Nikolai had not. Nikolai sulked, and nibbed his arm and paced. Then he said, "So have we got any help from your sister, or what?"

"I don't know," Karoly said. "I don't damned well know, I'm not going to know until we go in there, it's not an ordinary woods."

"It's not an ordinary woods."

"It's not."

"Well, fine, what's not ordinary about it? Ghosts?"

"You might say," Karoly said, and Yuri sat down slowly and put his arms around Zadny. He had seen all of ghosts he wanted to see today. But if Tamas was the other side of that place, or lost in there, well, he was going, and he did not want to call attention to himself or raise any question between master Karoly and master Nikolai about him not going and one of them staying to watch him. There were times, if one was a boy, it was a good idea not to be noticed. So he let them quarrel with each other, and like Zadny, he just kept still.

Things went more than bump in the night, they moaned and they whispered, and they hissed in the leaves, they croaked and they creaked in the brook and the brush, and they trod on ghostly feet, disturbing the leaves around about the line master Karoly had drawn.

What do ghosts do when they get hold of you? Yuri wondered. But no one yet had said anything about taking him home, so he lay still, shivering in his blanket, and hoping that last noise was Gracja stirring about, inside their circle. Zadny was bedded down with him and Zadny was asleep. The trolls had not shown up again, and he wished he could think they were part of what was going on out there, but he feared that Krukczy had indeed found his brother, or whatever made his going worthwhile. He was glad for Krukczy if that was the case. He hoped that he would find Tamas tomorrow.

Hello, he would say, when they rode up on Tamas. Tamas would be surprised, and angry, but over all glad to see him. Tamas would be impressed with what he had done and his keeping his promise—no, truth, Tamas would be furious at him for leaving home and worrying their parents and losing Zadny in the first place; but Tamas would forgive him, because Tamas would be very glad he had brought master Karoly and master Nikolai, who were help Tamas must have given up on—whatever Tamas was doing, whatever he was into, running off with witches.

Probably he was looking for Bogdan. If Tamas had gotten out in one piece, he would be doing that. Or possibly Tamas was trying to do whatever master Karoly was supposed to be doing, that his sister had wanted of him; so master Karoly's sister should not mind helping them, if master Karoly could make her understand.

And what was that master Karoly had said, using gran's name? People said gran had come from over-mountain, and people said gran had been odd. The boys said gran had been a witch. And evidently she was.

So what did that make papa, and what did that make him? That was a scary thought, and one he kept skipping off of, like a stone going over a river—back to the rustlings in the brush and back to Tamas and skip-skip-skip, across that dark spot again that held things he knew for certain master Karoly was not going to tell him, or master Karoly would have before this.

Then—it was after a dark spot, so he thought he must have dozed off—Zadny brought his head up and jolted his arm, and he saw master Karoly down on his knees with his ear to the ground, listening, the way he would do at home. He wondered if master Karoly's sister was talking to him, and he moved his arm and put his own ear to the ground. He was not sure he wanted to hear what master Karoly was hearing, and he was not sure it was right to eavesdrop.

But he heard nothing, anyway, but the noise of the brook and the rustle of the wind, and Zadny's heavy sigh. For a long time master Karoly stayed the way he was, and sometimes after that he cupped his hand as if he were whispering to someone, and listened some more. Yuri's eyes were very heavy, and they kept drifting shut, since nothing was going to happen that he could hear. And finally he knew he was asleep, because he kept dreaming of the troll's cave, and the cellar at Tajny Tower, and about home, too, as if he could drift around the halls. He could see his father sitting late, late in the hall, with no one around him. He could see his mother, looking so worried and so unhappy. He wanted to say, We're all right. And ordinarily in his dreams he could do as he wanted to do, but this time he talked and they did not even turn their heads, as if in his dream he was not there at all. And he went to Tamas' and Bogdan's room, but it was dark and no one was there; and he went to his, and everything was just the way he had walked away from it, even Tamas' box sitting on the bed, and everything dark, but he could see it. It was scary, as if he really was there, and his mother had not let the maids move anything, or even dust anything, because it had a musty, unused smell. He wished he were back with master Karoly and master Nikolai and he wished it would be morning soon.

Which it was, because he heard the birds starting up. And then he wanted to sleep, but master Karoly came and poked him with his staff and said they had to be moving.

Skory had snorted and moved, just a moment before Tamas knew that birds were singing-—he had that vague, disturbing impression, and he opened his eyes on gray sky and the branches of pines, seeing nothing wrong: he was numb on his back from contact with the stone, he would ache if he moved, and Ela's weight on his shoulder was truly painful, but he would have been oh, so willing to shut his eyes just a moment more.

But they had at least to think through where they were going and what they were going to do. He moved his left arm to lean on and lifted his head, and saw the rocky nook by daylight, saw—

"Ha!"

Goblins, all about, armed and squatting on the rocks and the earth of the hillside, only waiting, spears angled over shoulders.

Ela waked. He gathered her to her feet in the sweep of his arm as he scrambled up, saw goblins reach for spears and rise to their feet. He reached and drew his sword in hope that goblins had some concept of honor, enough to bring them at him one at a time—enough that it was not a volley of spears they had to face.

But the goblins all about suddenly changed their expression and looked past him, to the sounds of a rider arriving among the rocks. He turned his head just enough to confirm the pale gray horse he suddenly, angrily, believed it was. The goblins stood waiting for the intruder as Azdra'ik took his own time, rode up on them at an easy pace, swung off and lit on both feet at once, with a clash of metal. Lwi shied, snorting in dislike, and Tamas brought the sword up, waiting.

But Azdra'ik waved at whatever was happening at his back. "Oh, put the damned thing down, man, I've brought your horse back, haven't I?"

For a very little he would have swung at Azdra'ik. He did not put the sword away, he held it, waiting for Azdra'ik's joke to play itself out how it would; but Azdra'ik came closer, Lwi's reins in hand, and, with the point a hand's span from him, pushed it delicately, carefully away with the back of his hand, offering Lwi's reins inside Tamas' guard, while all about them was silence and waiting.

"Tamas," Azdra'ik said, looking him straight in the face; and did a beast call a man by his name, or give him time to think how fetal a move it would be to kill the goblin they knew, in the face of so many they did not.

Ela was as much in doubt. He felt her behind him. He kept his eyes on Azdra'ik and everything within eyesight as he lowered the sword point and reached after Lwi's reins, expecting some goblin joke. But Azdra'ik gave up the reins, and grinned at him, for which he was not in good humor. Azdra'ik turned away and swept a grand gesture at his cohorts around them, beckoning them to join him.

"Come down," Azdra'ik said, "come down, pay your respects to the witch of the Wood and—" With a turn half about: "—What are you, Tamas, lad? Have you a title this morning? Witchly consort, or—"

"Be damned," he muttered, and knew what they had seen and what they thought, while Ela stood hearing this and there was nothing reasonable he could say to Azdra'ik's suppositions.

Goblins came from out of the rocks, two score of them at the least. Tall, these were—like Azdra'ik, with like armor, and like faces, and an elegance and grace about them that declared they were no rabble. They were every bit what he had seen in the cellar at Krukczy Tower, if it had not been Azdra'ik himself—that memory welled up with cold clarity. They were guilty of that butchery, one and all of them. He had Azdra'ik's word they were not the lesser sort. These— these, then, were the lords and masters, these were Azdra'ik's kind; and he hoped for nothing different than his companions and Ela's mistress had gotten, seeing what he saw about them. He kept the sword in hand, he wanted to know Ela's mind—but perhaps he had dreamed last night: he felt nothing—nothing of her thoughts or her wishes or her intentions, only her presence. He saw the goblins going through the motions of courtesy toward her, but whether it was some mockery, or honest chivalry, their manner gave no clue. He felt cut off, bereft of that feeling he had dreamed he had last night, bereft of understanding friend or foe, or what Ela was, or where her allegiances lay: she had been at Krukczy Tower, she had escaped ambush, and he had thought when he first set out with her that she might be one of theirs. He did not want to think that there had never been any chance of his escape, that she served some goblin master,—ohtgod, he did not want to think that.

Not an ordinary forest, the old man said, and Gracja objected to being saddled—smart horse, Nikolai thought, cinching up. There was no question which of them had to ride today. Their wind-blown wizard looked as if a breeze hereafter would carry him body from soul—his hands were shaking, his steps were wobbling: clearly the old man had had all he could bear, and one could give him credit for courage if not for success with his magicking.

If only the old man could have done something about the boys, or magicked Yuri home, or something useful, but there was no place to put the boy, that was the problem—no place to put the boy and meanwhile Tamas was going deeper and deeper into trouble, so far as the ghosts said anything useful toKaroly.

Even the dog was quiet this morning, pressing himself as close to Yuri as he could get. The dog knew there were things he could not get his teeth into, and things that could chill a body into shivers and haunt his sleep—if a body could get any, with skulkings and prowlings all about their circle last night. The little that Nikolai had slept, he had dreamed of ambush, and Krukczy Straz, and the hillside and the birds circling.

Prophetic, it might be.

Meanwhile the old man was sitting waving his hands at the fire and talking to it. If other old men did that, the neighbors gossiped.

"We'd better get moving," he said.

"He's doing magic," Yuri said.

"He's doing magic. He's been doing magic since yesterday morning." For his part he had as lief sit here and let the old man magic up an answer that would save them going through that gateway, but he had no trust that would ever happen, and no trust that matters were not getting worse for Tamas while they sat here. "Come on, old man, are you learning anything? Or should we douse the fire and be out of here?"

The fire went out. Gone to cold cinders. That was impressive.

"No need to waste your strength," he murmured, rethinking the old man's value and the old man's awareness of the situation. Karoly the pot-wizard he was no longer, and perhaps never had been, that much had been clear since yesterday. "Do you want to get up on the horse, or are we still going?" It had been rush and haste and hurry, before the old man had started meddling with the fire. Half an hour ago nothing would do but speed; and half an hour ago the old man had looked on his last legs.

Now Karoly leaned on the staff that had rested against his shoulder; and changed as he was, more lined in the face, whiter of hair, there was a force to Karoly as he rose that made Nikolai think twice about the dead embers and what a life and a fire had in common.

"War and famine," Karoly said in a low voice. "That's all I see. The cities of the plain are under siege. The world reflects the mirror now, not the other way around. God hope they don't lose it."

"Lose what?" Nikolai had to ask.

"The fragment. The one piece that still reflects this world."

"How do you know it does?"

"Because we're here, working against her."

"You mean—" Yuri asked the question. "If it reflects us not being here—"

"—we won't be here."

Enough to upset a man's stomach. "Then why in hell didn't we go last night?" Nikolai asked, and went and brought Gracja back for the old man to mount. "Wait around here with ghosts prowling around—what worse can the ghosts do to us? They can't lay hands on us ..."

"Don't depend on it," Karoly said—the way Karoly said things and then held his silence, when a body most wanted to understand.

"Get up on the horse." Nikolai held the reins for him, turned the stirrup and helped him up—Gracja vergfed on horse-sized, a stout pony showing her ribs by now, wanting farrier's tools the boy had come away without: and she took the old man's armored weight with a laying-back of her ears and a stolid plod forward before Karoly took up the reins, as if she knew already they were bound for the gateway.

Or maybe it was like the fire just now, and Gracja had her orders.

Fire crackled. Goblins needing to make no secret of their presence, they were beginning breakfast. They spoke together in a language of lilt and necessary lisp, not without reference to the unwilling guests among them, Tamas was certain—good-natured reference, cheerful reference, oh, yes, of course. It was their fire and their breakfast.

They had not disarmed him. But then no one had, who had ever had the choice. Evidently he did not look that much of a threat to anyone—which did not please him, but it was not, master Nikolai would say, an excuse to be the fool they took him for. He had gotten to unsaddle the horses and give them rest, he had brought their personal belongings to where Ela was sitting, next the fire-making, none of which the goblins prevented, but there was always one watching him, leaning lazily on a spear but never failing attention. He set down the baggage, sat down beside Ela, and darted a glance at Azdra'ik talking with one of his fellows.

From Ela there had not been a single word, not a supposition, not an opinion: counting the sharpness of goblin ears, discussing their choices probably was not wise. Ela had the mirror and Ela had chosen not to use it—Ela surely knew the danger they were in and knew the choices, but she was evidently no freer than he was, and he wished he dared advise her: she looked so young and so shattered in her confidence at the moment. Speak, he dared not; and as for knowing her mind—he could make no guess, only anxiously wonder what Azdra'ik was about—whether Azdra'ik thought that, having the witch of the Wood in his hands, he might have use of the mirror; or whether he expected some great reward of his queen for returning it to her.

Spits and forked sticks had gone into the fire, propped on stones, holding flesh black and shriveled already from some previous smoking: their owners set them to heat, each goblin to his own breakfast, as it seemed, no preparation of cakes or bread—and increasingly now his and Ela's place of warmth and refuge near the fire began to acquire companions.

A goblin settled on Ela's other side, and Azdra'ik himself sat one place removed on his side, with a stick on which he impaled something and propped it on the rocks that rimmed the fire, the same as the others had done. All about them now were goblin faces, jutting jaws and flat noses, ears not where ears ought to be. Not untidy creatures, Tamas had to admit: hair, manes, whatever one might call it, were cleanly, black and wavy, some, or straight; loose or in braids; some about the face, some in back. Most wore rings in the ears, and one—Tamas could not help but stare, amazed—had a ring in his right nostril, evidently no inconvenience to the goblin.

And he could not but wonder at the wealth in the armor, of every least goblin in the lot—the most of it was brown and black, plain leather, the sort that foresters might wear; but the knives, the swords, the armlets and other pieces that they wore were blued steel inlaid with brass and gold and silver, and the chain where it showed at sleeve-edges and tunic-hems shone brighter and finer than any he had seen. They were none of them impoverished, who managed ornament like that; nor they had the look of bandits: what they wore was well fitted. Lords indeed—arrogant lords, who laughed, and cast one another grins, with glances back at them.

"They say you're very brave," Azdra'ik remarked.

He did not in the least believe that was what they had said.

Then Ela said, coldly: "Pahai'me. Shi ashtal i paseit."

Goblin eyes widened. Faces turned, conversation stopped, and Azdra'ik laughed in what sounded like surprise.

"Pasefcfc, ng'Ysabela."

Tamas cast a glance at Ela: he heardthe name, constructed it with ng'Saeich, and saw the whiteness of Ela's face, cold, ever so cold and angry. "Spas'i rai, ng'Saeich. You are most grievously mistaken."

"Ami?"

"Did you kill her?"

Azdra'ik laid a hand upon his heart—if he had one. "I swear by Lady Moon."

"The Lady changes."

"No. She has moods, but she never changes. Nor I. Nor have I ever, young witch. I swear that, too."

Ela did not answer that, Ela only stared at him, and, oh, god, the stress of the question in the company. Tamas saw it in every face, every frozen motion.

"You should learn your friends, young witch."

"You'll let us go," Ela said coldly. "No three wishes this time, ng'Saeich."

Grins broke out among the goblins. One nudged Azdra'ik in the ribs, but Azdra'ik seemed not so amused. "Impudent child."

"You know who I am," Ela said coldly.

"Young," Azdra'ik retorted. "Very young. Leave it alone, young mistress. Yes, it has power. So does the queen, and she's well aware of you now, and of us, if you use it again."

Ela said nothing to that, only scowled. What side is she on? Tamas asked himself, but clearly it was not quite for or against Azdra'ik, who was not quite loyal to his queen.

Meanwhile the goblin next to Tamas had caught a stick back from the fire, snagged whatever black, ragged thing was sizzling there, cut it and leaned their direction to proffer a tidbit on the edge of his knife. "Our guests first?"

"No, thank you," Tamas said faintly: his stomach was upset enough with the debate and the company. He had rather not look at it, and now that he had, he had rather not imagine what it had come from. The goblin laughed as if it were a great joke, others laughed; Azdra'ik, too, who said, "Rabbit, man. It's rabbit."

"We have our own breakfast," Tamas retorted, which set off more of their laughter, but he got into their packs and unwrapped what they owned. He could not have eaten that bit of meat, or, on second thought, have used his borrowed goblin knife to eat with—he was glad to keep to bread and cheese, and he offered a portion to Ela.

"A slight of our hospitality," Azdra'ik said. "How are we to bear it?"

Ela said nothing. And so it went. They ate their separate breakfasts in silence. Azdra'ik and his company pieced out theirs on knife's-edge and spoke animatedly in their own tongue. But eventually Azdra'ik said, "Not a word of thanks for your rescue."

"Rescue!" Ela said.

"Especially seeing young witches with more in their hands than they can handle. That will not serve you in the least, mark me. You know nothing of it."

"And you do," Ela said coldly.

The goblins thought this funny.

"Do you?" Ela wanted to know.

"Only," Azdra'ik said, "insofar as I betrayed its secret to the witches of the Wood, and counseled Ylena to make her minor." Azdra'ik rested an arm on his knee and pointed a black-nailed forefinger at them both. "She was a fool. At the moment of the disaster, I was with the queen. I smuggled the fragment elsewhere and bided my time. Ytresse betrayed her maker."

"Meaning Ylena," Ela said.

"Oh, no, meaning the queen. Ytresse was hers, in all senses but maternity. Ylysse—was her own. Likewise your predecessor—who was twice a fool. Now is the time, I said. Do something with the mirror, I said. But no, she was afraid. Now comes her apprentice to take her place, and what does her apprentice for a beginning? Her apprentice wanders the hills using the mirror for trifles and rattling the queen's own gates, then wonders that it attracts notice. Be glad that I found you, young witch. And show better manners."

"To you."

"Ela," Tamas said. If there was a peaceful offer from the goblin lord, he was willing to hear it—he was desperate to hear it, considering it was himself Azdra'ik would slice in pieces first if Ela decided to provoke him.

"No, now, I have patience. You remember my patience, man." Azdra'ik nipped a bit of meat off the skewer with a small knife, and offered it. "Rabbit, I swear to you. Lady Moon, what a disgusting thought. — Will you?"

"No, thank you."

"The rabbit doesn't care. Not now. There are ways and ways to lose one's concerns. I'd listen to advice, man. I'd persuade the witchling to listen. There is something about her and you that cannot find the right way through the woods—that will never find it, because the magic weights you in one direction, do you understand? The Wood is like that. You'll never meet a thing there but what you've already met, and I wouldn't advise going back in."

"What do you advise?" he asked, since Ela was too proudly sullen.

Azdra'ik shrugged. "Why, rattle the queen's gate quite properly. A place of power, that's where to use that trinket. And the Wood is denied you. So—take it to the queen's gate to use it."

"That would suit you," Ela said.

"That is where you were going," Azdra'ik said, "isn't it? Else you could have circled full about and headed back to Tajny Wood—which I don't think you dared last night to do. The magic—the magic was bringing you toward the queen's own doorstep. And think of it—what better trap for your predecessor to lay, than to plot her magic right down the very course the queen wants most? Irresistible? The queen would not stop you. So who carries that fragment has to come this way. I only hoped to stop you so long as there were choices— to take that bauble back to hiding before you did yourself and us grievous harm."

"Oh, I am sure!" Ela cried.

"An effort foredoomed, I've no doubt now. You were set before birth to be where you are, and I couldn't prevent you. So—since you want to go to the queen, we'll take you to the queen."

"No, "Ela said flatly.

"I assure you," Azdra'ik said, "you've no other choice. The world—has no other choice. You see in us a company that does not love the queen. But your obstinacy has put us in danger—has damned us to assist you now or die, and I assure you, young witch, we have our preference in the matter."

"I'm sure I should believe you," Ela said, but it seemed to Tamas there was worse than listening, and a more dangerous course than asking why.

"So why," Tamas asked, "don't you just kill us, take the mirror and do what you please? That seems the way goblins do things."

A quiet settled at the fireside. Azdra'ik gave him a look that seemed to go on very long. "Because, man, among other virtues I do possess—I am not a witch. None of us can use the mirror—worse, none of us can long resist the mirror—but the existence of that fragment of the great one is the only freedom we have."

"You say," Ela retorted. But it seemed to Tamas that he had just heard a compelling reason, if it was in any sense true.

"I do say. The mirror shapes what is in this land—beyond this land, for all we know. But as long as there exists another mirror, as long as there exists a different vision in another such mirror, there is hope for us. No, we are not eager to contest with our queen. We'd be content to live as we have, in exile—because we have no great hope in opposing her and we have no wish to lose everything in hasty confrontation. But to work against the magic that draws these pieces together—that we cannot, and since we cannot, we attempt to persuade those who can. Unfortunately—" Azdra'ik rose to his feet, towering above them. "Unfortunately, considering who holds it, and who can and cannot use it, the fragment cannot go back into the Wood again. Everything indicates where it's going, and that, young witch, means the queen."

A goblin said something to which Azdra'ik paid attention, something which brought frowns all about, and another and another spoke, in increasing heat.

"He points out," Azdra'ik said then, "that there is no good for us in waiting for the outcome. If you fail, young witch, we will be the queen's loyal subjects—because there will be no other possibility once she gains the fragment. You see what's at stake for us."

(The Wood is the only safe place,) something said in Tamas' heart, and he felt a great unease, as if that dreaded voice were giving him the only honest advice. (Azdra'ik is a liar, he's always been a liar, ahead isn't the only choice open to you. Everything he's done has been to his benefit and our harm. This is not the time to believe him, Tamas.)

But that was Ylena—he had Azdra'ik's word it was Ylena who haunted him, and Azdra'ik was standing in front of them in plain daylight, a goblin countenance which they had learned to tell apart from all other goblins, and which did not now appear to be lying.

"Are you going to let us go?" Ela asked.

"Go," Azdra'ik said, and waved his hand toward the horses. "Unless it occurs to you, as perhaps it will, that there are a great many hazards in the land, and that if you go back to the woods, you would fall into the worst hands that could hold the fragment, except the queen herself."

"And you," Ela said.

"Young witch, I, and my company, are as I said, yours to command, if you can command us. That's the nature of the mirror, and of any portion of it. Make us free of it."

Ela reached slowly to her throat, and drew the mirror from her collar. Goblins about the circle rose to their feet, and those nearest jostled for a look at it.

"Have a care!" Azdra'ik said, alarmed.

But Ela hurled it to the rocks at her feet. Tamas jumped back, expecting fragments, expecting—the god knew what. But it lay there whole, reflecting not the sky—but fire; and when he dived to retrieve it, his eye caught the roiling of dark images before his hand shut the sights away.

"Only magic can break it," Azdra'ik said. "Would not I have tried to have a piece of it to myself, when I had the chance? I tried the same. I tried stones and steel and curses, and it would not break."

Tamas gave it back to Ela—was glad to surrender it to Ela, because he only half-heard what Azdra'ik said: louder was the whisper of the wind in the trees, and keen and cold was the touch of a hand at his shoulder, an angry protest he could not altogether hear.

"Don't use it here," Azdra'ik said. "Wait. Be wise, young witch, put it away. And go where you please. But unless you use the mirror against us, and I do not for your sakes advise it—this company will go with you, this company will go with you against the queen, which is where you're bound, whether or not you know it—until you can no longer hold that portion of the mirror. We—come and we go with that. We rise and we fall with that. We will never betray the holder of the mirror. And that, young witch, comprehend exactly as you hear it, no more, no less."